The two papers—one written by Ron Fouchier from Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and the other by Yoshihiro Kawaoka from University of Wisconsin-Madison—detailed how they had mutated the H5N1 virus so that it could be transmitted among mammals by air rather than solely by close physical contact, explains Reuters.

The fear at the time was that these mutant strains could cause a pandemic if released by accident or on purpose by terrorists. NSABB instead opted to publish edited versions, allowing access to the full versions to only "select scientists,"says Discover magazine.

Reuters adds that the decision to censor the papers caused concern at the World Health Organization because it could "threaten the 'fragile' international collaboration that the WHO had assembled to combat avian flu." In particular, WHO was worried that countries such as Indonesia, which had taken years to persuade to hand over its samples of the flu virus, could stop cooperating.

However, on March 30, NSABB reversed its decision stating that "the data described in the revised manuscripts do not appear to provide information that would immediately enable misuse of the research in ways that would endanger public health or national security."

The papers will be published later this year, but Discover magazine reports that both authors have since revised their work. Fourchier told the audience at a Royal Society press conference that he has clarified, for example, that the airborne mutants of the virus did not kill the ferrets that were infected with it. "There was a misconception within NSABB about the lethality of our virus," says Fouchier.

However, it will be some time before the papers are published. Discover adds: "Both manuscripts still have to go through the usual process of peer review, and the US government hasn't weighed in yet. But should the process now go smoothly, nothing will be redacted from either paper. Fouchier has confirmed that his manuscript will include the full genetic sequence of his mutant strain."

Fouchier is also standing by statements he made when the existence of the mutant strains of the virus became public. He described the mutant H5N1 virus as "probably one of the most dangerous viruses that you can make." He told the Royal Society audience: "I'll stick by that comment without any problems. Maybe I'd put it slightly differently next time but it is the truth. Flu viruses are scary and if they acquire the ability to go airborne in humans, they cause pandemics."

Ars Science Video >

A celebration of Cassini

A celebration of Cassini

A celebration of Cassini

Nearly 20 years ago, the Cassini-Huygens mission was launched and the spacecraft has spent the last 13 years orbiting Saturn. Cassini burned up in Saturn's atmosphere, and left an amazing legacy.

Seems like they should have put a long delay in the release of the full details, like when one of these prestigious universities can make a vaccine for it. Instead, they will probably move on to mutating another non-mammal disease in order to make it suitable for humans.

Considering the technique wasn't particularly novel, and could reasonably be done by any microbiology grad student, why shouldn't they do this? The fact remains that the major blocker in creating an H5N1 bioweapon would be human incubators, which would require a state actor to provide both the subjects and the labs needed to contain the infection. Otherwise the researcher is likely to kill himself in the process, well before a targeted attack could take place. furthermore, a state actor is likely to realize that they have little to no way to contain such an attack from affecting their own country. It is silly to change any of the content of the research paper because it has very large barriers from producing results without state support.

a state actor is likely to realize that they have little to no way to contain such an attack from affecting their own country. It is silly to change any of the content of the research paper because it has very large barriers from producing results without state support.

Jihadists are rarely that analytical, and often more than willing to martyr themselves "for the cause".

a state actor is likely to realize that they have little to no way to contain such an attack from affecting their own country. It is silly to change any of the content of the research paper because it has very large barriers from producing results without state support.

Jihadists are rarely that analytical, and often more than willing to martyr themselves "for the cause".

So, State Actors... there are.

I wouldn't grant a unique license to "jihadists" for this sort of behavior...

I wonder how many comments we'll get this time about how the researchers should be executed for even carrying out this work.

Dunno, though it seems probable that many of the same arguments covered very well in initial post threads on this will just get rehashed again. It would have been nice if this article had linked previous Ars posts at least on the same subject.

a state actor is likely to realize that they have little to no way to contain such an attack from affecting their own country. It is silly to change any of the content of the research paper because it has very large barriers from producing results without state support.

Jihadists are rarely that analytical, and often more than willing to martyr themselves "for the cause".

So, State Actors... there are.

I wouldn't grant a unique license to "jihadists" for this sort of behavior...

If they don't use bio facilties, then this is unlikely to get very far. If they do use bio facilities, then intelligence will easily rat them out. You can't build a facility that is capable of both being sophisticated enough where you don't kill yourselves and where your state doesn't know what is going on. Even in backwards nations such as afghanistan, you have too many eyes watching you for this sort of activity to go unnoticed. The only reasonable conclusion is that even if you don't care if you die, you wouldn't be able to weaponize it before you killed off all your capable researchers without state sanction.

a state actor is likely to realize that they have little to no way to contain such an attack from affecting their own country. It is silly to change any of the content of the research paper because it has very large barriers from producing results without state support.

Jihadists are rarely that analytical, and often more than willing to martyr themselves "for the cause".

So, State Actors... there are.

I wouldn't grant a unique license to "jihadists" for this sort of behavior...

If they don't use bio facilties, then this is unlikely to get very far. If they do use bio facilities, then intelligence will easily rat them out. You can't build a facility that is capable of both being sophisticated enough where you don't kill yourselves and where your state doesn't know what is going on. Even in backwards nations such as afghanistan, you have too many eyes watching you for this sort of activity to go unnoticed. The only reasonable conclusion is that even if you don't care if you die, you wouldn't be able to weaponize it before you killed off all your capable researchers without state sanction.

I understand. What's to keep a state from acting on "jihadist" (or any other religiously motivated group) inclinations? In other words, the argument that this isn't a threat because "jihadists" can't accomplish the needed science without state support assumes a state never acts in a "jihadist" manner. I'm not certain that's a valid assumption.

Anyone capable of using this work for evil probably isn't insane enough to do so. Its the same reason we haven't had nuclear or other biological weapons go off and kill millions of people randomly.

Nah not possible right? How does it explain 2001 Anthrax released through the mail? Bruce Edwards Ivins was perfectly sane right? Doing the country a service right? Your very naive if you think your safe from the loonies who are capable of doing just that.

Besides! Even if they kept it a secret Anonymous would of hacked the information out for release, you know.......for the better good of society. According to them.

Personally, I think the rest of the world is getting sick with America and England's attitude of "we can do it, but you can't" towards weapons and chemicals.

WMDs seem to be a particular example. We accuse Saddam of hiding them, yet we bombed and killed an entire town because "there is a chance he will be there"... Technically not a WMD, but isn't that using weapons for mass-destruction? Is killing a whole town for one man (and not even getting him) destruction on a mass scale?

We can make nukes, virii, engage in cyber-warfare and any number of other things aimed at little more than destruction yet any other nations trying the same will get called terrorists and dictators then invaded for oil... I mean democracy.

News flash: we don't live in a democracy but a plutocracy at best, if not a totalitarian oligarchy.

Considering the technique wasn't particularly novel, and could reasonably be done by any microbiology grad student, why shouldn't they do this? The fact remains that the major blocker in creating an H5N1 bioweapon would be human incubators, which would require a state actor to provide both the subjects and the labs needed to contain the infection. Otherwise the researcher is likely to kill himself in the process, well before a targeted attack could take place. furthermore, a state actor is likely to realize that they have little to no way to contain such an attack from affecting their own country. It is silly to change any of the content of the research paper because it has very large barriers from producing results without state support.

Yes I always bet my life on state's acting rationally. Why, the very history of humankind makes anything else inconceivable. Never before has a state or a rouge organization within a state acted irrationally.

Personally, I think the rest of the world is getting sick with America and England's attitude of "we can do it, but you can't" towards weapons and chemicals.

WMDs seem to be a particular example. We accuse Saddam of hiding them, yet we bombed and killed an entire town because "there is a chance he will be there"... Technically not a WMD, but isn't that using weapons for mass-destruction? Is killing a whole town for one man (and not even getting him) destruction on a mass scale?

We can make nukes, virii, engage in cyber-warfare and any number of other things aimed at little more than destruction yet any other nations trying the same will get called terrorists and dictators then invaded for oil... I mean democracy.

News flash: we don't live in a democracy but a plutocracy at best, if not a totalitarian oligarchy.

We accused Saddam because he had them and used them. I am sure the data the UN itself had about his use of them during the Iraq-Iran war and on his own people (the kurds) was just the oligarchy making stuff up. Oh btw, not to let the facts get in the way of a bad rant, there are all kinds of democracies who posses all kinds of weapons that the US has never declared or even hinted at being terrorists. By and large it is the dictators the US worries about due to the fact that dictators have historically been okay with killing large numbers of people including their own. This kind of action tends to lose one votes in a democracy, not always as nothing is perfect but I think the record for dictators falls well short of that for democracies.

While the above mentioned actions are not carried out by the exactly same instance, the money does flow between them.

Last edited by decapitar on Tue Apr 03, 2012 7:47 pm"

Eggsactly - releasing such research information to the public does not benefit the public in any way - I mean, who would need information to create a mutant virus at home? But it would benefit the pharmaceutical companies who would make billions if a mutant virus is created and then they have to manufacture the vaccines. Now, guess who paid the bill to research those viral mutations?

Obviously the report should be censored and the scientists fired. While we are at it we will write up legislation that makes evolving from an avian flu to a mammalian flu illegal. Any virus that do so will be fined, that'll teach them!